There are some fools in this world, victims of rationalist materialist Enlightenment propaganda, who falsely posit a conflict between science and religion, reason and mysticism. In reality, mysticism is just a form of 'higher science' or 'higher reason'. Just read the anti-reductionist views of the greatest of modern physicists, see K. Wilber's Quantum Questions:
Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists. The truths of mystics cannot contradict the truths of natural philosophy, because truth cannot contradict truth. Trans-rational truth is not sub-rational. The different domains of human experience and knowledge complement each other. With this intellectual outlook in mind, I was wondering if anyone knew of any studies on the scientifically measurable beneficial effects of sexual celibacy and chastity in general? The greatest minds of civilized mankind (Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus, etc.) were one in their assertion of the metaphysical and moral importance of chaste and celibate values. But for a hardcore scientistic believer in profane modernity, the crudely measurable is all that counts. Therefore, this profane modernist would require a 'scientific' account of the physiological and neurochemical processes involved in such evolved asceticism....

If you are talking about physical benefits, there are none, unless you consider an abundance of semen in the case of men a "benefit." At least one study indicates that sexual activity in men reduces the risk of prostate cancer.

In my experience, a sexual relationship is not worth the trouble. I really don't see how I could ever bother with one again.

When I feel the urge, and the setting is right, I thoroughly enjoy a masterbation session - - I reap the apparent scientific benefits of sex, while avoiding the nonesense that goes with actually having a partner.

This is not the type of response I expected. I thought perhaps I had found a community of like-minded believers in radical philosophical purity across all spheres of life. I assumed most people here would be at a certain psychological, educational and spiritual level, beyond modern fleshliness, vulgarity, masturbatory liberalism and close-minded materialism, judging from the reverence shown to authentic heroes of the spirit like Kierkegaard and Weininger. I am only 20 years old, but I put behind such things years ago. I hope we can engage each other at a higher level in the future. I value the time-tested wisdom of the authentic sages of the past more than the nihilistic pseudo-wisdom of modern materialistic sexologists. Are we going to arrogantly pretend that the most exalted wisdom-bringers of human history, like Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus, Gandhi, etc. were delusional fools and we moderns simply know better than them? What foolish hubris.

In the Aryan-Hindu religion, it is taught that if the virya or spiritual manhood is lost or wasted this results in spiritual death and if withheld and conserved leads to life. The modern writer Sivananda Sarasvati explains this teaching: "The seed is dynamic energy which has to be converted into spiritual energy," and "He who seeks divine realization with true zeal should observe strict chastity." As a result of the conservation of virile energy in this way, supra-normal powers appear in the aspirant: the creation of a special "magnetic aura", a "personality that inspires a kind of holy awe," and the power of influencing other people by words or a mere look (La Practique de la meditation, Paris, 1950). Analagous teachings abound in all the various orthodox wisdom-traditions...

Naturally, those botched people without race, heritage, tradition and caste instinctively cannot understand the meaning of a traditional code of ethics, higher virile self-mastery, or the unitary joy of living a rigorously pure and chaste existence. The higher races transmute sexual energies into spiritual ones.

Plato established a hierarchy of the forms of eros, rising from the sensual and the profane up to the peaks of the sacred (Symposium, 14-15; 26-29; Phaedrus, 244-45; 251-57b) and culminating in the eros through which "the mortal seeks to live forever and become immortal" (Symposium 26).

Arthur Schopenhauer said: Far more than any other external member of the body, the genitals are subject merely to the will, and not at all to knowledge. [...] The genitals are the real focus of the will, and are therefore the opposite pole to the brain, the representative of knowledge, i.e., to the other side of the world, the world as representation.

Every animal, including also la bÃªte philosophe [the philosophical beast] instinctively strives for the optimal beneficial conditions in which it can let out all its power and attain the strongest feeling of its strength. Every animal in the same instinctual way and with a refined sense of smell that 'is loftier than all reason' dislikes any kind of trouble maker or barrier which lies or which could lie in his way to these optimal conditions (I'm not speaking about his path to 'happiness' but about his way to power, to action, to his most powerful deeds, and, in most cases, really about his way to unhappiness). Thus, the philosopher dislikes marriage as well as what might persuade him into itâ€”marriage is a barrier and a disaster along his route to the optimal. What great philosopher up to now has been married? Heraclitus, Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Leitniz, Kant, Schopenhauerâ€”none of these got married. What's more, we cannot even imagine them married. A married philosopher belongs in a comedy, that's my principle ... A certain asceticism, as we have seen, a hard and cheerful renunciation in the best wills, belongs to those conditions favorable to the highest spirituality and is also among its most natural consequences. Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals

The re-absorption of semen by the blood is the strongest nourishment and, perhaps more than any other factor, it prompts the stimulus of power, the unrest of all forces towards the overcoming of resistances, the thirst for contradiction and resistance. The feeling of power has so far mounted highest in abstinent priests and hermits (for example, among the Brahmins). Nietzsche, Notes (1880-1881), p. 75 of the Kaufmann reader

H.P. Blavatsky: The question is often asked, Why should celibacy and chastity be a sine quÃ¢ non rule and condition of regular chelaship, or the development of psychic and occult powers?... When we learn that the "third eye" was once a physiological organ, and that later on, owing to the gradual disappearance of spirituality and increase of materiality (Spiritual nature being extinguished by the physical), it became an atrophied organ [the pineal gland], as little understood now by physiologists as the spleen is â€“ when we learn this, the connection will become clear. During human life the greatest impediment in the way of spiritual development, and especially to the acquirement of Yoga powers, is the activity of our physiological senses. Sexual action being closely connected, by interaction, with the spinal cord and the grey matter of the brain, it is useless to give any longer explanation. Of course, the normal and abnormal state of the brain, and the degree of active work in the medulla oblongata, reacts powerfully on the pineal gland...

The virility that is physical, phallic, muscular, and animal is lifeless and does not contain any creative germ in a superior sense. Phallic man deceives himself by thinking that he dominates; the truth is that he is passive and is always susceptible to the subtler power of women and to the feminine principle ... Thus proliferation is concentrated ... in the inferior races where the animal-like impulse is stronger than any rational calculation and consideration Julius Evola

It is the 'spiritual' need that must be eliminated at an early stage, since this affects a much deeper element that has nothing to do with the body and since it testifies to deficiency and to inconsistency of spirit. The danger that a woman represents, particularly today, is not so much her female aspect as the fact that she encourages the need for support, for reliance upon someone else who may be a weak soul unable to find in himself a meaning for his life. The same Indo-Aryan tradition records a saying attributed to a yogin, an ascetic: 'What need have I of an external woman? I have an internal woman within me' - meaning that he had within himself the element of self-completion, of fulfillment, an element that the common man confusedly seeks, instead, in woman. J. Evola, The Doctrine of Awakening

We have a corresponding psychological process when, with the strengthening of masculine consciousness, masculinity and ego consciousness, the fight with the mother dragon becomes the hero's, i.e., the ego's, struggle for self-liberation. In this struggle the union of the hero with the masculine 'heaven' brings about a self-regeneration in which the male reproduces himself without the aid of a female. Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness

You would have gotten a different response had you posted the question on Genius Forum instead of Science and Evolution. Because you posted in this forum, you got answers from the physical realm, based on scientific information a bit more up to date than Nietzsche.

If you wanted to know the forums response based on philosophical benefits and posted on main GF, you probably would have gotten a much more supportive stance.

Thank you Elizabeth for your attempt at explanation. I swear I didn't mean to sound arrogant; it was just that after reviewing the absolute.net, my expectations were very high, and when I got mainly standard-scientistic-materialistic, juvenile, masturbatory responses I was emotionally disappointed. Perhaps I will transfer this post to the GENIUS forum.

Are we going to arrogantly pretend that the most exalted wisdom-bringers of human history, like Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus, Gandhi, etc. were delusional fools and we moderns simply know better than them? What foolish hubris.

What makes you think these people are worth following? Are you going to arrogantly pretend that you simply know that you are good enough to judge the whole of mankind and select which ones are the best? Let's see here:

Plato established a hierarchy of the forms of eros, rising from the sensual and the profane up to the peaks of the sacred (Symposium, 14-15; 26-29; Phaedrus, 244-45; 251-57b) and culminating in the eros through which "the mortal seeks to live forever and become immortal" (Symposium 26).

So? I could establish a hierarchy of carpet lint all the way up to belly button lint if I wanted to. It doesn't prove anything.

The virility that is physical, phallic, muscular, and animal is lifeless and does not contain any creative germ in a superior sense. Phallic man deceives himself by thinking that he dominates; the truth is that he is passive and is always susceptible to the subtler power of women and to the feminine principle ... Thus proliferation is concentrated ... in the inferior races where the animal-like impulse is stronger than any rational calculation and consideration Julius Evola

Julius Evola? What's next, Shirley McLaine?

Now I apologize for cracking a joke on your thread (couldn't resist), but just throwing out a bunch of text is pretty lame and unintelligent. People are expected to think for themselves around here.

I mean, why don't you tell us why you think a scientific justification of celibacy is important? Is it because you're afraid to think outside of the comfortable niches of science? Why can't you simply use your own powers of observation and reason to see what the effects of celibacy are on a person's life? Do you even care about your life or this is some type of school project or something? I mean, what's up?

I have a friend who is a so-called hardcore empiricist, who believes faithfully in modern sexology and is demanding empiroco-material proof that ascesis is not harmful but beneficial...

The quotations were not "thrown", I cited them for brainstorming and context, and I can assure you, I am not unintelligent and do think for myself. If external mechanisms of validation are deemed important, I have an IQ of 140, belong to PHi Beta Kappa and the National Dean's List, etc.

To cite intelligent men who lived before us who found some of the secrets of healthy living is not an "irrational appeal to authority". To not recognize wisdom where there is wisdom is what is irrational. There is a juvenile pseudo-rebellious attitude of flippancy and dismissiveness here that is not conducive to communication.

No, I think he must be some kind of occultist or something. I don't know why anyone would consider Pythagoras, Julius Evola and Helena Blavatsky to be wise, unless they were going to go off and do some magic or something.

In my experience, a sexual relationship is not worth the trouble. I really don't see how I could ever bother with one again.

When I feel the urge, and the setting is right, I thoroughly enjoy a masterbation session - - I reap the apparent scientific benefits of sex, while avoiding the nonesense that goes with actually having a partner.

hahahahahha - I agree Simon.

yeah, I think improved robotics and virtual reality simulations will eventually put many women out of work.

Perhaps, you'll see women lined up outside the bars just like the unemployment line, but unfortunately there wont be enough males to go around...

Arktos wrote:The greatest minds of civilized mankind (Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus, etc.) were one in their assertion of the metaphysical and moral importance of chaste and celibate values. But for a hardcore scientistic believer in profane modernity, the crudely measurable is all that counts. Therefore, this profane modernist would require a 'scientific' account of the physiological and neurochemical processes involved in such evolved asceticism....

For such crude measuring I think you'll have to split the topic in two:

1. Measurable effects of bonding, companionship and close proximity of a partner on our psychology. Which psychological processes make us lust after company, touch or intimacy? Are they unavoidable for a stable mind or only to integrate in a social structure?

2. The processes of sexual arousal and release regarding processing of hormones, stress and bodily fluids.

The second topic is simply about intercourse or masturbation and here are some references to studies in Wikipedia:

# Brody, Stuart. "Blood pressure reactivity to stress is better for people who recently had penile-vaginal intercourse than for people who had other or no sexual activity." Biological Psychology, Volume 71, Issue 2, February 2006, pages 214-222.

Well, so far not impressive amount of research to draw any conclusions from. There could be so many more factors at play. And what is healthy for a sheep, increasing good old sheepness might be lethal for a wolf, who knows?

Some of the research appears to be possibly flawed, like they might not measure the effects of sex but overall 'sexual activity' or lifestyle - which might be health related too (eg fat people have less chance to 'get some').

Also, a person following their passion, any passion, with dedication is in a better situation, physical as well as psychological than someone just drifting along without aim at all.

The study about reduced depression for females seems a bit far fetched. How does condom use relate to relationship depth and term? I guess the whole research would have to be analyzed to find that out.

Still it's an interesting list of research pointing out the fairly obvious that it's healthy for an organism to follow the animal instincts and potentially unhealthy to resist them too much, at least without some wisdom applied in how to go about it.

Well, the benefits they listed for men included that ejaculation releases carcinogens, but the benefits they listed for females included the absorbtion of minerals, such as zinc. What they failed to include is that each ejaculate only has 5mg of zinc in it, and that a male can only ejaculate 4 times a day (he can have sex more often than that and orgasm more often than that, but that's it for ejaculate). So, in order to get the amount of zinc available in an average multivitamin, I would have to have sex 6 times a day, and I would need 2 men in order to accomplish this - plus the minerals would come (no pun intended) with all the carcinogens that the men are purging from their bodies. Additionally, multivitamins have more vitamins and minerals in them than male ejaculate. I think the multivitamin is an all-around more logical choice.

As for the hormonal benefits, I can see where sex would be an easy way to get the body to produce the beneficial chemicals to produce these hormones. When a person feels good, the body produces many health boosting hormones, but if a person is generally stressed and depressed, they are prone to cancer and a variety of other ailments, as well as a lowered immune system which makes them more vulnerable to opportunistic infections. I don't see where sex itself is necessary to produce these benefits once the delusions about sexuality have been dispelled, but in the short term, it would be a quick and easy way to bring about a feeling of well-being. I guess it's a matter of what an individual's psychological capabilities are.

Thoughts about the condom use (in addition to your points) - as the research said, the benefits for the female are more from the emotional satisfaction, and when a male uses a condom, he generally has to be rougher to work up enough friction to accomplish the deed - and the rougher sex is often less emotionally satisfying for the female. Also, it is about the touch, and a condom makes it feel like getting poked with a thing rather than having the intimate touch of human flesh - which also subtracts from the emotional satisfaction.

to much crap and not enough useful information. Its not enough to memorize a few terms, or write about other peoples opinion. Gather your knowledge-Make sure you understand- and write it in simpler terms so others can understand. Ex. Doctors and Lawyers...you think about it.

Sex- genetics- 'procreation'. Feel close to someone, have kids, less stress...whatever.

no sex and no thoughts of sex- more time for acedemics, more knowledge less hastles...:)

"The generative energy, which, when we are loose, dissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent, invigorates and inspires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it." -Henry David Thoreau

An opinion has gained ground in modern times, not only among the general public, but also among physicians, that the belief in the physiological value of continence belongs to the dark ages of religious superstitions and scientific ignorance and is incompatible with physiological knowledge. Certain pseudosexologists, have exploited this idea to their commercial advantage and have created in the public mind a phobia in regards to continence, which is regarded as a cause of nervous and mental diseases and a positive health danger...

A careful reading should, however, convince any open-minded reader that the above view is false, and that continence per se can never do harm, but is always beneficial...

...and that when trouble occurs in an individual not practicing normal sex relations, the fault is not continence but some vicarious means of sex expression, excessive nocturnal emissions, etc.

In view of the richness of the semen in lecithin, cholesterol, phosphorus and other constituents of nervous and brain tissue it is clear that it is incontinence, or loss of these valuable nerve- nourishing substances which, by promoting undernutrition, is responsible for disturbed functioning of the nervous system and brain and never true continence, contrary to the unscientific views of the psychoanalysts.

We have seen that the internal secretions of the sex glands stand at the basis of the individual's physical and mental vitality...

...and that sex hormones are present in the external as well as in the internal secretions of the gonads. Many of the effects attributed to such hormones, as we have seen, are due to the physiological effect of resorbed semen...

...Conservation of semen means conservation of sex hormones and increased vigor, while loss of semen means loss of hormones and diminished vitality...

...also chronic deficiency of such hormones leads to the symptoms of senility, which Voronoff and Steinach strove to overcome by increasing the amount of sex hormones in the blood.

The semen is a viscid albuminous fluid, alkaline in reaction, which is very rich in calcium and phosphorus, also in lecithin, cholesterol, albumen, nucleoproteins, iron, vitamin E, etc.

In the ejaculation of the normal man, about 226 million spermatozoa are given off; these are rich in phosphorized fats (lecithin), cholesterol (the parent-source of sex hormones), nucleoproteins and iron.

An ounce of semen is considered to be equal in value to sixty ounces of blood...

...of which it constitutes an extract of some of its most valuable of constituents, as far as its vitalizing power is concerned.

...Dr. Frederick McCann remarks on this point, "From what has been stated it must be admitted that the spermatic fluid does possess potentialities justifying the belief of ancient writers concerning its vital properties.

The semen contains substances of high physiological value especially in relation to the nutrition of the brain and nervous system. If resorption of semen through the wall of the female genital tract has a vitalizing effect on the female organism the same should be the case in the body of the male in which it is formed and conserved.

And conversely, loss of semen must deprive the organism of vitality and valuable substances necessary for the nutrition of nervous tissue, such as lecithin, which has been used therapeutically with great success for the cure of neurasthenia resulting from sexual excess.

The following are among the many physiological evidences which demonstrate the value of continence:

1. There is a remarkable similarity of chemical composition between the semen and the central nervous system, both being especially rich in lecithin, cholesterin and phosphorus compounds, which would indicate that seminal emissions withdraw from the body substances necessary for the nutrition of nervous tissues.

4. Observations of the immediate effects of the sexual orgasm indicate that it temporarily exhausts the nervous system, and when repeated too frequently leads to chronic nerve- weakness (sexual neurasthenia).

5. Continence is beneficial to the brain (for conserved lecithin from retained semen is a true brain food.)

Hence some of the greatest intellectual geniuses in ancient and modern times led continent lives. These include:

6. Recent physiological evidence, pointing to the fact that the seminal fluid contains substances of great physiological value (such as Poehl's Spermine, which is a nerve-stimulant, lecithin, cholesterin, vitamin E, male sex hormones, etc.) supports the idea that continence is beneficial to health...

...as do the experiments of Prof. Brown-Sequard on the vitalizing effects of testicular extracts and those of Prof. Steinach on the rejuvenation that follows the enforced conservation of semen through ligature of the efferent testicular duct.

I find it hard to square the wondrous spiritual benefits of celebacy with the fact that monkish types over the centuries have been some of the most ignorant, crabbed, unimaginative, intolerant and nasty specimens of humanity, and all too often the agents of terrible crimes inflicted on innocent people.

In contrast, Johann Sebastian Bach and Albert Einstein were notable for the vigor of their sexual proclivities.

However, I do think that sex is a bit of a scam. It is a terrible trick to play on an unsuspecting child as he or she enters puberty. I have noted that all too often sex means minutes of bliss and years of agony. However, most people learn only through suffering, so it is not all bad. If sex increases your knowledge, understanding or human sympathy, then it is positive. If it doesn't, then it is either neutral or negative.

If you want to be able to think and speak, sex becomes a distraction. Chakras furthest from the crown chakra should be monitored but not indulged in. Masturbation is efficient, quick and to the point. You donâ€™t have to buy your hand flowers on Valentineâ€™s day.
The sexual urge exists to ensure the propagation of the species no matter how bad it gets on the mortal coil. Those Who Designed Us knew that the individualâ€™s next breath should be autonomic; likewise, we should be comforted that there will always be babies.
It should be evident that Jesus avoided sexual liaisons so that his teachings of opening your hearts to the Father survive. Otherwise, we would have had this:
â€œAnd I say to you, the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, and â€“ what? No, Mary, for the seventh time, you ass does not look fat in that robeâ€¦â€

There's a certain level of self-defeat that accompanies any objective inquiry into any subjective practice. The truth is that Objective inquiries never do justice to subjective practice like Yoga, Celibacy, Meditation etc. The experience is really what matters and modern scientific inquiries lag way behind due to limited perception of chemical changes and physiological processes. An Example: Tummo meditation and the scientific community's lack of explanations.

You can hope to synthesize the bigger picture by understanding the smallest physical changes, but in a sense this is completely hopeless because it is only the surface whereas committing to the practice is infinitely deeper.

The true experience of Celibacy is also largely subjective and depends completely on the aspirant. To put in a simple way: Celibacy is actually an experiment in which you persevere and observe any psychological effects while weighing your own consequences. Therefore, One cannot elucidate ALL the benefits of Celibacy by observing only the smaller chemical changes or changes in the hormones through modern scientific studies. One has to try a personal rigorous study for at least 30 days and contemplate slowly through the changes to get a more feasible understanding.

The biggest problem within the 21st century, is the madness for more information, without the follow through and contemplation. Intellectualizing is not the same as practicing. One can't master the game of basketball just by reading about it nor hope to understand mastery just by looking at Kobe Bryant.

Certain realms of this practice are entirely spiritual, and ultimately depend on progressive contemplation and follow through to get a bigger picture.

I'm not a scientist but based on my personal experiment with Celibacy over the past 38 days, I would like to share my own subjective experience of it:

1.) Celibacy is very difficult because this culture has officially adopted sex as the mainstream to pretty much sell anything. As a result, we are desensitized and also addicted to it- uprooting this negative pattern is very difficult and it can be done, but the main thing is dogged perseverance.

2.) Celibacy requires solitude and simplicity because will power is ultimately a muscle; one that you will have to work constantly and will leave you constantly drained. So if you hope to maintain consistency then the first 2 to 3 weeks should be as simple as possible because too much stress with draining will power can wreak havoc.

3.) The first 2-3 weeks are among the hardest and you will experience withdrawal effects.

4.) Celibacy means that you have to try and also control your thoughts as well as your actions. Some form of daily meditation is absolutely crucial. Things seem a lot more tempting after 30 days and will eventually become do or die and it is a terrible feeling to fail.

5.) Celibacy requires the right devotion. If you are committed to doing yoga, exercising etc. then Celibacy is wonderful because you can put more time, energy and technique into your practice.

Overall: Celibacy does give you more energy naturally, but it needs to controlled in the right way through solitude, contemplation and sublimated with devotion to a particular practice. None of these things come easy in our culture.

The mistakes I made:1.) I adopted Coffee, Music and Sulked around too much; then after it became pointless to do that, I gave it all up and am now slowly adopting meditation, yoga, and solitude.

There is a mental black hole that will emerge once you take on celibacy, filling it with the right things not only takes time and diligence, but its one that you work through by giving up a lot of other things. Thus the process of self mastery towards enlightenment.

2.) Extra Energy = Extra sensitivity.I felt really aggressive at times and very sensitive to people and disturbances in my environment. This made me work harder to find a level of solitude to deal with all the disturbances. If I didn't do that, It would not have been possible.

you are only 20 years old? wow that is the most amazing thing. Were you born perfect? You were a teenager 1 year ago. I had to study Aristotle 20 years, I am just starting to understand. I thought one has to live some years to experience the actions that occur in life. How is it possible to know virtue at 20 years old? I though we come into this world to work through our problems, and eventually achieve virtual, by long practice and study. If you were able to do this by age 20, God bless you. But, man, what was the point of even coming into this world? you were perfect already